


Five Things Max Doesn't Do

by dareyoutoread



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 07:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4011796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dareyoutoread/pseuds/dareyoutoread
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Max has rules...</p>
<p>...and breaks them.</p>
<p>(This tried to be a "five things...and one thing" ficlet, but apparently five was enough.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things Max Doesn't Do

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I've posted anything, but this fandom needed more fic. And this one had to be.

Max doesn’t _trust_. Temporary alliances, partnerships “for mutual benefit,” watching each other’s backs - these are things he doesn’t do. He waits, and he watches, and he avoids contact when at all possible and he sure as _hell_ doesn’t hand a loaded gun to a stranger he’s just met, even when she _is_ trying to blow a couple dozen War Boys off their tail. 

When she drops back into the rig with a satisfied smirk, he thinks maybe it’s ‘cause she put a gun in his hand first. (And the _whywhywhy_ of that, after he’d tried to kill her and she him - only she’d tried a lot damn harder, hadn’t she? - fucks with him for hours after.) But the next time he turns his back to her, he’s not edgy, and when she braces a loaded gun right on his fucking shoulder, he doesn’t even twitch.

...

Max doesn’t _sleep_. There are times, sure, when what’s left of his body grabs what’s left of his mind and drags it down into unconsciousness, but it’s never a choice, and it’s never rest. It’s just dead space before the nightmares come back.

So when he jolts awake, swinging, in the passenger seat of the war rig and Furiosa looks right at him and mutters, “Get some sleep,” he just stares at her. Because the fuck-all of it is, he already _had_. 

...

Max doesn’t _help_. If something is pragmatic, if it’s beneficial for him, then it’s a go. If not, he’s out. Survival first. _His._

But now his mouth and his feet and his knife have all agreed they’re going back to stop the Bullet Farmer, and the rest of him can’t quite catch up to why that’s a good idea. At least he still tells Furiosa to do what he would do (would have done) and _drive_. She doesn’t, and he comes back with blood on his face and a big fucking bag of guns and still not a clue why he’s done it (and why hadn’t she left him there??). Furiosa grins and takes the guns and it’s only when Max doesn’t try to stop her that he realizes they weren’t for him all along.

...

Max doesn’t _share_. Not his past, not his problems, not his fucking _name_. 

But she’s bleeding out in front of him, half-life pale and gasping even after he drives the knife into her side, and suddenly sharing is all he can do. His blood, his name, anything that will help, anything that might pull her back from the brink. He grips the back of her neck - blood and dust and his blood pouring through her and “Max, my name is Max,” falling over and over again from his lips, and he’d let all of it run through her veins and puddle on the floor if it would make any damn difference. She can have it.  
…

Max doesn’t _belong_. He skirts the edges, keeps the tank half-full and ready to leave, forgets the places he’s left before they can grab him. 

So when he circles back to the Citadel after a month, he calls it a coincidence. The second time, two months later, he calls it a supply run. It’s only about three years and fifty or so circles later that he starts to call it _home_.


End file.
